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Re: Nude

I try to be a little more open minded than perhaps (the majority?) - but I'm not opposed to super soft or super sharp. Funny, but I don't put value in (some one else's) critique either I know if I like it or not instantly, and frankly what someone else thinks of the image is of little value. Neither do I expect my definition of art to match anyone else's.

Re: Nude

Originally Posted by Joe Forks

I try to be a little more open minded than perhaps (the majority?) - but I'm not opposed to super soft or super sharp. Funny, but I don't put value in (some one else's) critique either I know if I like it or not instantly, and frankly what someone else thinks of the image is of little value. Neither do I expect my definition of art to match anyone else's.

How boring would it be if everyone was the same?

Joes,

I agree!

There's a dearth of humor in viewing the petzval swirls. Relax, folk! The nides can also be photographed with a precise Red Dot Artar at f22 if you wish. The fact that one can buy an old Bausch and Lomb projector lens and repurpose it to draw fun, fascinating images. That's what the petzval saga is about plus the romanticism coming from Tonopah followers.

What's critical is that there should be available a range of approaches to photographing the nude. hopefully that will include everything from bad, OK to downright wonderful, but what we expect to see has to be challenged. A lot of folk will make technically excellent pictures and no great style, some will do the inverse. However, just for myself, I see enough excellent art work here to make it more than worth my while to look at each and every photograph.

Without openness to the experiment, unusual glass, new compositions, weird, unwanted and irregular, then everyone would be producing one of a kind work and for sure it will be boring, no matter how nude she is!

Re: Nude

Asher,

I'm not suggesting anyone change their approaches, or enjoy less what they do, however they like to do it. That being said, I can't recall ever having seen a swirly bokeh photo, nude or other, for which I felt the swirly bokeh added anything of value, be it humor, interest, or beauty. Others clearly feel differently about the effect, and I wish them all the joy they find in it. For me the effect is no more or less interesting than using a star cross filter, or polarizer for every photo; sure, there's an identifiable optical effect, but I don't find it very interesting in itself.

Re: Nude

I'm not against lucky imperfections and funky glass, but I do object to the sheer trendiness and "me-too"-isms prevalent in the alternative process community. It detracts and dilutes the finest work when we see so much generic copycatting and blind praise heaped upon a boatload of mediocre examples.

So yeah, it's all good and there are several examples of short depth-of-field, swirly bokehed images that are truly magnificent, even if the emulsion is peeling strategically and the glass is cracked oh-so-perfectly. But it gets a little tiresome when absolutely every image is above average and everybody's is a winner.

Re: Nude

In my old age I'm starting to wonder if anything is inherently attractive, or is that sense of appeal really just a matter of people following trends. Nowadays, its considered clever to mess your up hair so that it sticks straight up, and to wear jeans where someone else has created holes in the knees. A guy sees some people dressing like that on TV and then feels he must mimic that look. We learn that something completely absurd can be made to seem sensible to the public in general, through repeated exposure.

Here on the forum, we see fairly straightforward portraits getting a lot of positive commentary if they're taken with the legendary soft focus lenses. I see it as a somewhat similar phenomenon to the adherents to clothing trends, where observers following the commentary at some point begin to internalize the concepts, and then to adopt the religion.

No big deal though, following trends vs finding your own voice is a classic quandary for would-be artists. Imagine being a painter who hates trends and finds themselves living in Paris in 1880 and not liking impressionism. You could find yourself to be a broken and dispirited nobody in later years, but still holding to your pride of not being someone who participates in fleeting trends.

The point being, trends can be annoying, and the tendency for people to blindly get in line can be especially tedious. But there is, nonetheless, often some degree of validity to movements when taken in the context of the overall growth of a medium. From my own perspective, stopping the lens down all the way like I did in the 80's and 90's seems kind of silly in retrospect. I really never even tried shooting any of my lenses wide open, and was ignoring a broad area of potential creativity, for no other reason, really, than it being the general practice among Ansel followers. Somewhere in the thousands of galleries I visited I had internalized the idea that tack sharpness in big prints represented true beauty.

Re: Nude

Originally Posted by mandoman7

In my old age I'm starting to wonder if anything is inherently attractive, or is that sense of appeal really just a matter of people following trends. Nowadays, its considered clever to mess your up hair so that it sticks straight up, and to wear jeans where someone else has created holes in the knees. A guy sees some people dressing like that on TV and then feels he must mimic that look. We learn that something completely absurd can be made to seem sensible to the public in general, through repeated exposure.

Hello John,

That's fashion and a desire to be up to date and with the trend setters. In tribal days that might just save your life, LOL!

Originally Posted by mandoman7

Here on the forum, we see fairly straightforward portraits getting a lot of positive commentary if they're taken with the legendary soft focus lenses. I see it as a somewhat similar phenomenon to the adherents to clothing trends, where observers following the commentary at some point begin to internalize the concepts, and then to adopt the religion.

Yes, ideas and ideals can be viral, and that's what memes are. Yes, that's religion too, for good or bad! The question is, "Can one can work in modern idiom and still transcend the limitations and narrow paths of such modernity?" What museums collect, should, in the long run reach out beyond time and represent the best of what man can do from a different vantage point of circumstances and opportunity.

Originally Posted by mandoman7

The point being, trends can be annoying, and the tendency for people to blindly get in line can be especially tedious. But there is, nonetheless, often some degree of validity to movements when taken in the context of the overall growth of a medium.

Most important!

Originally Posted by mandoman7

From my own perspective, stopping the lens down all the way like I did in the 80's and 90's seems kind of silly in retrospect. I really never even tried shooting any of my lenses wide open, and was ignoring a broad area of potential creativity, for no other reason, really, than it being the general practice among Ansel followers. Somewhere in the thousands of galleries I visited I had internalized the idea that tack sharpness in big prints represented true beauty.

and my friend, your use of the lens to demonstrate the grapes project, (or give), themselves to us, (almost as a fertile nubile female might) , is exemplary of the best use of this type of lens.

So then when looking at the nude, one can conceive of new presentations derived from how something like a bunch of grapes might look. From such backgrounds can come: "Posing of a guitar as if she was a woman, nude, reclining for our camera".

John Youngblood: "Untitled" from Ribbecke Guitars Series

Appears like a reclining Nude

That's how styles and approaches can work for the good, even with petzvals.

Re: Nude

Re: Nude

Seems like we are just reliving Ansel versus Morensen; both camps just could not accept the other and proceeded to trash each other as not being the one true photography. Of course it went badly for Morentsen. Pictorialsim was banished and even now is beat down when it dares show itself. Sometimes I wonder if dpreview did a hostile takeover of Large Format Photography forum due the sudden increase I have observed of bickering posts.

Re: Nude

Stephen,

Differences of opinion don't necessarily constitute bickering, and I don't see anyone here arguing against pictorialism or for an alternative to it. Swirly bokeh is a distinct optical effect associated with petzval lenses, but that shouldn't suggest the effect is inevitable when using that type of lens. I am no champion of critical sharpness as a measure of beauty. I just don't see the debate to which you allude, or the bickering.